Thursday, January 29, 2009

One of the more enduring myths in the comics milieu is the one that states Katsushika Hokusai's coining of the word "manga" around 1814 (the word today means "comics," but it meant "sketches," to say it simply, or, according to Frederik L. Schodt in Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics, 1989 [1983], Kodansha: 18: "whimsical sketches"). Mitsugu Katayori explained (International Journal of Comic Art, Vol. 7, # 2, Fall/Winter, 2005: 48): "The word manga in the phrase Hokusai Manga [a generic title to designate fifteen woodblock-printed volumes - manuals to painters - published between 1814 - # 1 - and 1834 - # 12 -; three posthumous volumes were published between 1849 and 1878] comes from the word manzen, which means browsing aimlessly. A long time ago, in China, there was a bird called Mangachuko. It had long legs and ate shellfish from the river. Hokusai imaged the bird when he named the collection of his drawings. He sketched as much scenery as possible, like this bird that picked up anything and everything, browsing in the river." Santō Kyōden used the word "manga" before Hokusai in the kibyōshi (yellow covers) picture book: Shiki no yukikai (seasonal passersby), 1798 (Adam L. Kern, International Journal of Comic Art, Vol. 9, # 1, Spring, 2007: 23; see above). Adam even registers older uses of the word: "the term appears even earlier than Seasonal Passersby, within the text of Suzuki Kankyō's Miscellany of Comic Scribbles (Mankaku zuihitsu) of 1777 -- well over three decades prior to Hokusai's use in his title. And a couple years earlier than that, Hanabusa Itchō (1652-1724) used the Chinese graphs for manga -- though glossing them to be read as mankaku -- in the title of a work (Mankaku zukōgun chōkakukei, 1769)" (ditto: 24). The little rub that made me wonder in the above quote was: how come someone who died in 1724 wrote a book in 1769? That's when I put the www to good use and asked the excellent essay's author on the Plat list. Here's what he answered (Jun, 22, 2007): "Hanabusa Itcho produced "Mankaku zukogun chokakukei" as a manuscript sometime during his lifetime -- nobody knows precisely when -- but it was only published posthumously in 1769." Thanks again for your kind answer, Adam! This proves that trying to find firsts is a tricky business. If asked though, I would say now that, until proven wrong, Hanabusa Itchō coined the term, probably during the late 17th to early 18th century.

Fugako hyakkei is a religious book. As Henry D. Smith put it in his great intro to One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji (George Braziller, 2001 [1988]: 7): "One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji is a work of such unending visual delight that it is easy to overlook its underlying spiritual intent. Hokusai was, as he prefaced his signature, "Seventy-five Years of Age" when the first volume of the work appeared in 1834, and his effort to capture the great mountain from every angle, in every context, was in the deepest sense a prayer for the gift of immortality that lay hidden within the heart of the volcano. By showing life itself in all its shifting forms against the unchanging form of Fuji, with the vitality and wit that inform every page of the book, he sought not only to prolong his own life but in the end to gain admission to the realm of the Immortals." Fugakku hyakkei was published in three volumes. The colophon of book one has Katsushika Hokusai's famous declaration (henry D. Smith's translation, ditto: 7): "From the age of six I had a penchant for copying the form of things, and from about fifty, my pictures were frequently published; but until the age of seventy, nothing that I drew was worthy of notice. At seventy-three years, I was somewhat able to fathom the growth of plants and trees, and the structure of birds, animals, insects, and fish. Thus when I reach eighty years, I hope to have made increasing progress, and at ninety to see further into the underlying principles of things, so that at one hundred years I will have achieved a divine state in my art, and at one hundred and ten, every dot and every stroke will be as though alive. Those of you who live long enough, bear witness that these words of mine prove not false. Told by Gabyō Rōjin Manji" (Manji [Hokusai's last name in a long list], old man mad about painting; see the original Japanese text in image # 4, above).

Fugaku hyakkei is part of comics' expanded field, I guess. I see no reasons, other than the usual sociological ones, to exclude this marvelous book from the restrict field though. Comics are both narrative and descriptive. This is a descriptive book: it depicts life, in all its forms (even the imaginary ones). Descriptions are usually on the background while the story unfolds in the foreground. Hokusai brings the former to center stage, but, as we'll see below, he did even more than that...

In the chapter "The Impossible Definition" of his book Système de la bande dessinée (Presses Universitaires de France, 1999) Thierry Gröensteen starts almost rejecting essentialism ("it has become almost impossible to retain any definitive criteria that is universaly held to be true": 14; translation by Bart Beaty and Nick Nguyen) to later invoke a "foundation principle" ("their common denominator and, therefore, the central element of comics, the first criteria in the foundational order, is iconic solidarity:" 18). If that's not hardcore essentialism (not to mention old school Structuralism) I don't know what essentialism is. But, anyway, to be as incoherent as Gröensteen, I'll use his "foundational principle" to say that, there's no doubt about it: Hokusai's images in Fugaku hyakkei show iconic solidarity in the highest degree. The link between all the one hundred and two images being the triangular form of the mountain. I also want to put a geometry concept on the comics theory table (Hokusai loved geometry, by the way...): the idea of locus (the totality of all points, satisfying a given condition; the locus, as applied to comics, is a third way between narration and description). That's certainly what Hokusai did around Mt. Fuji: he searched for geographical points, hither and yon, from where the mountain could be seen. But that's also what every other comics artist does... all the time... even if their Mt. Fujis are called Mongo, or Metropolis... even if their points are just figments of their fertile imaginations...

Images:

1. page from Shiki no yukikai by Santō Kyōden (w) and Kitao Shigemasa (a) (1798); the word "manga" (漫画) can be seen in the fifth column from the left (second) at the bottom (as published in the aforementioned page of the IJOCA);

4.Fugaku hyakkei's colophon's first page as published in One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji (George Braziller, 2001 [1988]): the fifth column (second) includes the declaration translated above; the seal (originally in red) represents Mt. Fuji and the I Ching trigrame for lake; in the fourth column (third) appears the name of the engraver: Egawa Tomekichi.

2. more from El Cubri: "One small step..." / "for a man..." / "...one giant leap..." / "...for mankind."; the third world waits for the benefits of such a great leap (after all these years it's still waiting, in fact); El Cubri's creations are closer to visual poetry than they're closer to children's traditional comics; what's interesting is that, even if they worked with expanded field's precepts, they viewed themselves as part of the restrict field (i. e.: the comics milieu): "Apolo XI," Bang! Trocha # 2 (July, 1977);

6. Federico del Barrio at the height of his powers: a great page from Lope de Aguirre, La conjura (Lope de Aguirre, the conspiracy), Ikusager, 1993; Felipe Hernández Cava, w;

7. the final page of Lope de Aguirre, La expiación (Lope de Aguirre, the atonement), Felipe Hernández Cava, w; "Rebel until I die because of your ingratitude, Lope de Aguirre, pilgrim;" Aguirre's last words in his famous letter addressed to king Philip II of Spain (1561; my translation); great art by Ricard Castells: this quasi-abstract page sums up all the drama in a brilliant way: it reminds me of Milton's last words in Samson Agonists: "And calm of mind all passion spent." (Milton, Penguin Books, 1985 [1671]: 288); this is the calm of death, as the desolate landscape proves, drawing a cross (but the seed was planted for Bolívar and Martin, as the script hints);

8.Que Podemos Fazer? (what can we do?, 2000): a comic published in Portugal with script by Felipe Hernández Cava and drawings by Monique Bruillard; it's a very short story about two International Brigades' volunteers (one from Germany, the other from the UK); the story ends exactly when they're entering Spain by train: it's as if Felipe Hernández Cava is reluctant in addressing the big one (is he?);

9. page about the war crime that was the bombing of Dresden; Soy mi sueño, Edicions De Ponent, 2008.

Felipe Hernández Cava should need no presentation. He simply is one of the best (and oldest because he started his career in 1971) comics writers. If I complained in my last post that "comics readers are rarely given the opportunity to follow a comics artist's career," the same is true if applied to comics script writers, I suppose. Felipe Hernández Cava is one of the exceptions. In his own words (U # 25: 31; my translation): "When I write a TV script, a way to put bread on the table, I know perfectly well that I'm addressing a particular audience share. I'm addressing a huge number of people and I have to do concessions accordingly. When I do a comic, I do it for a minority that may enjoy the things that I want to tell." Sure, he has dayjobs, but he insists in collaborating with great comics artists who are as stubborn as he is...

Hernández Cava's first creative period happened when he participated with Saturio Alonzo (and, later, Pedro Arjona) in the creation of the art collective El Cubri (the Kubri; meaning: Stanley Kubrick's name without the "ck," as it would be pronounced in Spanish, particularly in the South of Spain). El Cubri did highly politicized left wing comics at first (in Bang! / Trocha - later Troya -, for instance - # 1: May 1977 -, but also on the walls as graffiti) to do genre comics later (historical: "Luis Candelas" in Madriz - # 1: January, 1984; noir: "Sombras" - shadows - in Vilan - # 4, 1981, methinks...).

While working with Alonzo and Arjona as El Cubri Cava also did some scripts for Luis Garcia about the Indian Wars in North America (Bang! / Trocha / Troya too). History is Felipe Hernández Cava's main focus, particularly Spain's turbulent history during the first half of the 20th century. That's why he wrote Las Memorias de Amoros, for Federico del Barrio, about the pre-Civil War (Amoros' memories; "Firmado mister Foo" - signed, Mister Foo;"La luz de un siglo muerto"- the light of a dead century; Las alas calmas - the calm wings; Ars profetica; Alfoz magazine, late eighties). Also with Federico, Cava did the masterpiece "El artefacto perverso" (the mischievous artifact, Top Comics, 1994) about the post-Civil War. We're still waiting for his take on the war proper.

Another historical work by Felipe Hernández Cava is his trilogy about Lope de Aguirre. An historical figure who tried to create a kingdom in South America rebelling against the Spanish king Philip II (16th century). The books are: La aventura (the adventure; art by Enrique Breccia), Ikusager, 1989; La conjura (the conspiracy; art by Federico del Barrio), Ikusager, 1993; La expiación (the atonement; art by Ricard Castells), De Ponent, 1998 (the change of publisher occurred because the first one didn't like Castells' art: good grief!).

It would be easy for a writer interested in the conflicts that tormented the 20th (and other) centuries, to be manichean, but that's exactly what Felipe Hernández Cava is not (U # 25: 66; my translation): "my tendency always was to let the characters be defined by what they do, there's no need to caricature them."

Soy mi sueño's main character, Erich Hafner, is a luftwaffe pilot whose plane crashed. Is it a coincidence that this crash occurred in Crimea (like Joseph Beuys')?, or that the year 1942 is mentioned (an erroneous date for Beuys' plane crash that can be found in certain sources)? Maybe not, but really, I don't know... Felipe Hernández Cava and Pablo Auladell mix dream and reality (Auladell's blurred images diligently do their task to accomplish this ethereal effect). With the help of Solaya, a shaman, Erich remembers his childhood in Dresden and other facts that show him the eye of the storm while lying in bed, hurt. In a fractured age, Erich's search for his identify is inexorably fated to fail... Joseph Beuys invented a foundation myth to reinvent himself, though... Erich can surely try too, not to reinvent, but to create a meaningful afterlife. It's the best that he can pathetically do when everything crumbles around him...

Images:

1. Felipe Hernández Cava's portrait as drawn by Luis Garcia in Bang! Troya # 7's back cover (January, 1978); inside the magazine Cava is the model for the main character in "El grito" (the scream) by Victor Mora and Luis Garcia;

6., 7.Carel Moiseiwitsch's paintings about the Palestinian situation are more interesting as reportage than they are as works of art per se:

6.Detainees (Arrayoune Square, Nablus, March 6, 2003, 2003);

7.Women Waiting (Asseera Checkpoint, March 9, 2003, 2003);

8.,9. two panels from "This Is a True Story" (Positions, East Asia Cultural Critique, Volume 13, number 1, Spring 2005).

PS It's obvious that Carel Moiseiwitsch's art is overtly political, but isn't it also true that the same thing could be said about every single art work ever created? Why don't we say it then? As Ariel Dorfman so aptly put it (The Empire’s Old Clothes: What the Lone Ranger, Babar, and Other Innocent Heroes Do to Our Minds, Pantheon Books, 1983: 192; translation by Clark Hansen): "To go against the grain is political; to flow with it is entertainment."

Sunday, January 18, 2009

It's a well known fact: comics readers are rarely given the opportunity to follow a comics artist's career from her first steps to maturity to old timer days. Either the artist is doing adolescent stuff or lame jokes (don't be fooled: editors make sure that the jokes are safe and, therefore, lame), in two words, mainstream pap, or the best we can expect is the work of thirty somethings... After that, comics artists get families, bills to pay, etc... and disband for greener pastures. (Another hypothesis is faithful readers getting a book every sixteen years or so...) All these facts are easily explained: there's no money in art comics. Period. It's easy for someone outside the field to say something like "Kafka had a daytime job too," but doing comics is very time consuming and hard. This explains why we have to wait an eternity for the work done by the few who don't quit entirely.And, then... it's also possible that some people might simply lose interest...I don't know in which case to put Carel Moiseiwitsch, but she did some very interesting comics for a while and disappeared completely from view after that. I say "interesting" because she actually had something to say. That, has we know, is a capital sin in a babymen's milieu that calls what's dumb "fun" and calls "pretentious" and "elitist" everything that's not "fun" (i. e.: dumb).Moiseiwitsch wasn't exactly in her thirties when she published in Weirdo (# 13, Summer, 1985) or when Fantagraphics published an anthology of her short stories (Flash Marks, June, 1989; she was born in 1941), but my point stands because she devoted herself to painting and political activism (in defense of the Palestinian people) in more recent times.One of her most spectacular actions was the creation of a fake (four pages) Vancouver Sun edition. The Seriously Free Speech site gives the details (Canwest: Media Bully: http://seriouslyfreespeech.wordpress.com/): "In June 2007, the Palestine Media Collective [Carel Moiseiwitsch and Gordon Murray] produced and distributed 12,000 copies of a newspaper parody of the Vancouver Sun that satirized Canwest’s anti-Palestinian bias with articles such as “Study Shows Truth Biased Against Israel” by Cyn Sorsheep. Six months later, in December 2007, Canwest Mediaworks Publications Inc. launched a lawsuit against those "conspiring" to produce and distribute the parody."Carel Moiseiwitsch returned like the prodigal son, but she didn't return to publish in a pamphlet (what for?, to let it languish in those freak shows we call comic stores?) or even in an avant-garde comics anthology. She returned in an unexpected place: Duke University Press' Positions, East Asia Cultural Critique magazine (Volume 13, number 1, Spring 2005: 195 - 204). "This Is a True Story," that's what I'm talking about, was done after a striking stay in Palestine during 2003 (as she reported, with Gordon Murray : "The Israeli army is killing and wounding obvious non-combatants such as medical workers, journalists and international human rights activists with increasing frequency. Between March 16 and April 12, 2003, the Israeli forces ran over and killed Rachel Corrie from the U.S. with a military bulldozer and shot both American Brian Avery and British activist Tom Hurndall in the head. Hurndall is currently on life support and is not expected to survive;" Winnipeg Free Press & Palestine Media Center, May 10, 2003).After her scratchboard Neoexpressionist, Punk, eighties' and nineties' style, Carel Moiseiwitsch drew "This Is a True Story" with a simpler approach. The images are less violent and dark, but I find his pseudo-children's story graphic style very effective ("not suited for children" is "This Is a True Story"'s subtitle, by the way). I, for one, was moved by Abu Khalid's and Hilweh's predicament at the hands of Israeli soldiers. Quoting Moiseiwitsch and Murray, again: "the Israeli military did not seem to view Palestinians as human beings." This reminds me of the most celebrated graphic novel of the 20th century, but that's another story. Or is it?...

3. Lovecraft by Buscaglia and Breccia: "El horror de Dunwich" (Dunwich's horror) as published in Los mitos de Cthulhu (the Cthulhu myths),Nueva Imagen, 1980 [the series' first appearance: Il Mago (the magician) # 20, 1973; this particular story: Il Mago # 44, 1975]; Breccia faced an old Kantian aesthetic problem: how can we represent the unmeasurable, the sublime?;

4. Poe by Breccia: "El corazón delator" (the tell-tale heart) as published in Breccia Negro (Record, 1978 [Alterlinus # 9, September, 1975]); an obsessive rhythm conveys the fear and madness of both characters: an absolute masterpiece!;

5. Quiroga by Trillo and Breccia: "La gallina degollada" (the beheaded chicken) Breccia Negro, Record, 1978; the red (rojo) in this black and white story is a nice touch;

6. Borges by Sasturain and Breccia: "El fin" (the end), as published in Alberto Breccia, Obras completas, Volumen uno, Doedytores, 1994 [Versiones, Doedytores, 1993] (my translation): "After his righteous chore was done, he was nobody now / Better yet he was the other / He had no destiny on earth, he had killed a man;" a fine example of Breccia's monotype technique;

Monday, January 12, 2009

In my last post I mentioned how important one of Edmond Baudoin's conversations with Etienne Robial was in his life as an artist. Our friends aren't those who pamper us, no matter what. Our real friends are those who tell us the truth, even if in a brutal way.

A similar thing happened to Alberto Breccia (Bang! # 10, 1973: 5; my translation): "I was with Hugo Pratt passing in a car at night through Palermo [a park in Buenos Aires] [...] and he told me: "You are a cheap whore, why are you doing crap if you could do something better[?]" I strongly resented his remark, but he was right." If Edmond Baudoin's and Alberto Breccia's objectives in their careers were to become rich doing comics (like Charles Schulz or Hugo Pratt, for that matter - do as I say, etc...) those earth shattering moments were poison (box-office poison); if they wanted to be great comics artists though, those words were a true blessing. Alberto Breccia started drawing comics during the thirties, but the true Breccia appeared (after the above episode occured) when he worked with Héctor Germán Oesterheld at Editorial Frontera doing "Sherlock Time" (first appearance: Hora Cero Extra! # 5, December 1958; all the following titles and dates are first appearances). Breccia changed his drawing style a few times after that fearing the routine of the old timer pro (in later years he was known as "el viejo," the old man, by the way). As he put it (ditto; my translation): "I don't believe in styles, styles are mannerisms."

After "Sherlock Time" another important step occurred with "Mort Cinder" (Supermisterix, August, 1962), in which Breccia used chiaroscuro and halftone dots to achieve dramatic effects. The next one were monotypes and collage: "Richard Long" (Karina, 1966) and the second version of "El Eternauta" (the Eternaut; Gente, 1969), both with Oesterheld. Alberto Breccia's last phase would be a mix of Caricature and Expressionism (grotesque) as can be seen in "Buscavidas" (the rummager; SuperHumor # 11, November, 1981) and "Perramus" (Orient Express # 23, july / August, 1984). Scripts by Carlos Trillo and Juan Sasturain respectively.

"Un tal Daneri" (a guy named Daneri; Mengano # 5, 1974) is a very dark comic set in Mataderos, Alberto Breccia's childhood neighbourhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina (he's Uruguayan though). Alberto Breccia explained (SuperHumor # 1, July / August, 1980; my translation): "I think that in 'Un tal Daneri' I conveyed something of what I saw during my youthful years. Those brick walls, those clay streets, those low clouds which seemed to be at hand's reach. In Mataderos I saw creole duels in which the Pampa Julio was involved[...]"

Daneri is an ex-cop with a tired and suffering expression on his face. He lives alone with his memories in a decaying and poor part of the city. The other characters he deals with aren't much different from him: nothing is easy for them and they accept life as it comes. This is also a comic under heavy Jorge Luis Borges' influence. As Fernando Garcia explained in his intro to Doedytores' reprint of these eight short stories (2003, my translation): "the main character's name is an homage to Carlos Argentino Daneri, the owner of the house in which the Aleph is in Borges' short story with said title. [...] Carlos Argentino Daneri is nothing else than Dante Alighieri's anagram." The difference between Daneri and Dante (the character) is that the latter is only visiting. The former can't escape, but Trillo and Breccia also show a great deal of tenderness for their characters. Even in hell we can find the beauty of a noble gesture or the sad beauty (is there any other kind?) of a tragic ending.

2. the cover of Breccia Negro (Breccia noir): Record, 1978, in which four "Un tal Daneri" stories were published for the first time;

3. the beginning of the story "El monstruo" (the monster) with Carlos Trillo's sparse, but beautiful prose (my translation): "There's a moment in which the night exhausts its euphoria and its gloominess and prepares itself to die."

Friday, January 9, 2009

2.,3. some recurring images haunt Edmond Baudoin... I'll show two in this coda: the man who runs and the "open head" motif: "This man who runs in "La vie" [life; Civilization, Glénat, 1981 (Circus, 1978)] is an image that I could never erase from my mind" (Edmond Baudoin in Baudoin by Philippe Sohet, Mosquito, 2001: 31; my translation):

2.Passe le temps, Futuropolis, 1991 [1982];

3.Le chemin de Saint-Jean (Saint John's way), L'Association, 2003 [2002]; it seems that Baudoin reads a parable of life in the man who runs: he runs and runs and then gets killed; I also read a desire to get away from something painful or a yearning for freedom;

4. Edmond Baudoin: "I don't like "sound effects" in comics much. The "boom," "bang," "vroom." With La peau du lézard [the lizard's skin], I tried to convey sounds with the drawing's technique only. Strong ink blots for violence, weightlessness for tenderness" (Derriére les fagots - untranslatable expression used in those special occasions in which a precious wine bottle gets out of the wine cellar where it is supposedly kept "behind a bundle of sticks;" Z'éditions, 1996: 20; my translation); La peau du lézard is: Futuropolis, 1983; we can also see how, changing from the constrained rapidograph to the free brush, Baudoin looked to the Far East (to painter Shitao, mainly) for guidance;

5.,6.,7., 8., the "open head" motif:

5.Le premier voyage, Futuropolis, 1987; the main character, Mathieu (as in Les chemins de la liberté - the roads to freedom - by Jean-Paul Sartre), leaves his house to go to work, but wanders around instead: "I drew my character with his head open to let him be open to the world" (Edmond Baudoin, Derriére les fagots, ditto: 49; my translation); notice the printed words at the bottom of the page; Edmond Baudoin was an accountant who viewed art as a liberation;

6. Baudoin did a remake of Le premier voyage for Kodansha in Japan (later published in France as: Le voyage (the travel; L'Association, 1996 [1995]);

9. Edmond Baudoin is a master of the drybrush technique: another allegory of life: the old chestnut tree, struck by lightning; it still stands like a beautiful sculpture, pointing upwards (Le chemin de Saint-Jean, L'Association, 2002; this drawing wasn't included in the first version of the book because Le chemin de Saint-Jean is a work in progress).

Monday, January 5, 2009

The big publishers always preferred their work-for-hire artists to remain anonymous as much as possible. They wanted the characters that they owned to be cultural icons, they didn't want the creators to be stars. The best example is undoubtedly the Walt Disney Company (it took a while until Malcolm Willits discovered who Carl "the good artist" Barks was; the year: 1957; Barks was "eating duck" - to paraphrase Hal Foster who "ate ape," i. e.: drew Tarzan during depression years -, since 1942). This attitude went against the grain of the 20th (and 21th) century, of course... Our age simply worships signatures. That's why, eventually, they had to give credit where credit is due...

A true pioneer in this respect was Etienne Robial, publisher of the often lauded Futuropolis publishing house. Many before him gave credit to the artists and writers, but it was Robial who first pushed the name of the artists (as "auteurs") to the forefront, to the cover of his collection 30/40, to be more precise (30 x 40, in centimeters, is the size of the books: 11.81 x 15.75 inches). Issue # 1 appeared in 1974 (Calvo).

Edmond Baudoin began his career in comics the year before with "Incident" (accident; Le canard sauvage - the wild duck -, # 3 - 1973, third quarter). A few years later, in 1981, he met Etienne Robial. In his own words (Baudoin by Philippe Sohet, Mosquito, 2001: 33; my translation): "It was a meeting of vital importance [for me]. It was one of those meetings that blows one up." Publishing at Futuropolis Edmond Baudoin was a trailblazer of autobio comics in France with Passe le Temps (time passes; 1982) and Couma Acò ("like this" in Provençal; about his grandfather; 1991). Other books were inspired by his own experiences: Le premier voyage (the first travel; 1987). After Futuropolis' demise he continued to create autobio comics at L'Association: Éloge de la poussière (in the praise of dust; about his mother; 1995), Terrains vagues (the waste lands; 1996); and Seuil: Piero (Baudoin's brother; 1998), to name a few... More than his own life and intimate thoughts, more than being just his family (with the exception of Piero), Baudoin focused on simple, low class people (living like dogs, as he put it in Couma Acò). In 1990 (April), it was Baudoin time at 30/40 (see above). As an intro, Etienne Robial wrote to Baudoin in the inside front cover of the book (again, my translation): "Edmond, I'm writing to tell you that I'm happy to publish your work in the 30/40 [collection]. You'll say that, after ten years of a common stubborn persistence and eight books, the least that we can say is that we love each other. And yet, our story together nearly had an early ending. Because, Edmond, I can't believe how you could be a pain in the ass with your lines. What was this line: clumsy, with no body[?] And that's not all, you always had a message to deliver, not forgetting the frame repetitions, almost tics, with your habit of always swinging clouds, birds, the wind in the hair. Unbelievable: you wanted to be romantico-poetical and everything turned sci-fi. Listening to you talking about your comics one could believe to be at the Salon des Indépendents. Sometimes I inclined myself a bit over my secretary to see if you wore flares. Almost. But, in spite of all that, I ended up believing in your famous line. As I see it, it's more than stubbornness. In 1985, as if love was evil’s sister [the miracle of the vowels], as a poet friend of yours would put it, everything changed. [And I mean] the first three pages of Un rubis sur les lèvres [a ruby on the lips]. Magnificent, you understood everything, at last: line economy, nothing was missing; the sun, the heat, the burning sand. Everything thanks to your... lines. I perspired... I breathed... But, take note, Edmond, it's not finished. I'm looking forward to read the stories that you'll tell me with your lines, but be careful with them, I will not accept to go back to the Salon des Indépendents again." The story published in 1990 in this sumptuous size was "Le portrait" (the portrait). Baudoin was at the time in a relationship with dancer Carol Vanni (the model for the model dancer, Carol; the model for the painter was Michel Houssin: Michel; years later we can witness, in Terrains vagues, how his relationship with Carol - Louise - gets eroded). The above quote seems cruel, but Robial doesn't exaggerate a thing (he was quite unfair to the anti-kitsch Salon des Indépendents, though; maybe he meant the Salon tout court?). Even if Edmond Baudoin is light years from his first inauspicious first efforts, a certain sentimentality can still be detected here and there in his work. Not in "Le portrait," methinks... It's a story about one of Edmond Baudoin's recurring themes: drawing itself and how inadequate it (art) is to capture life. Maybe that's exactly the paradox: we kill what we capture. It doesn't matter one bit if love is involved in the process: the miracle of the vowels (part of a song mentioned by Etienne Robial, above) says it all: "Je la nomme et dès lors, miracle des voyelles, il semble que la mort soit la soeur de l'amour." (My translation: I name it right now, the miracle of the vowels, it seems that "la mort" - death - is "amour"'s - love's - sister.)

About Me

I'm a Portuguese comics critic. I contributed to the magazines: Nemo, Quadrado, Satélite Internacional, Splaft! and the catalogs of the Porto, Lisbon, Amadora comics conventions (Portugal), The Comics Journal, The International Journal of Comic Art (U.S.A.), L'indispensable (France), European Comic Art (UK). I also wrote the preface to the latest edition of Guido Buzzelli's book I Labirinti (Italy). I co-curated a Buzzelli exhibition in Lisbon and an exhibition of my original art collection in the Beja Comics Convention (Portugal). I wrote twenty three entries in the book 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die (UK). In 2012 I was invited to the seminar Aesthetics of Contemporary Comics in Oslo (Norway).